Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Mercenaries - NOT Like DOS 2 Please

Been playing DOS 2, and I got to mercenaries lizard lady. I got excited. Maybe I could create a second custom character.

Nope. You just tell the lizard lady you want a fighter or rogue or whatever and she gives you a prebuilt character. No custom character for me.

I ABSOLUTELY do not want that for BG3. I want to be able to create custom companions from scratch like I do my MC. I'd like the option to create up to 4 custom characters in the beginning and an option to create additional custom characters at the Grove and switch out ones that die and/or that just aren't working.

Maybe Aradin had more mercenaries as part of his team, but they rejected his leadership later and decided to remain at the grove. Maybe you can recruit them via someone like Zevlor or the tiefling training the kids.

Just PLEASE let us create our own and recruit and dismiss companions as we see fit.

Finally, another plug for party of 6. I wanted 1 or 2 custom characters in DOS WITH Lohse and Beast and Ifan. That would have been SO cool. The same is true for BG3. 4 custom characters plus 2 origin would allow so much flexibility and I'd be able to still enjoy origin characters stories.

Yeah, it feels like a unnecessary restriction - probably it was a simpler implementation and considering classless system of D:OS2 and ability to fully respec character I imagine it was even an issue. BG3 would definitely benefit of full mercenery creator.

While i would also appreciate option to adjust statistics of my Mercenaries as i see fit ...

I wouldnt take theese words too literaly:

I mean ...
Right now there is only one way to test such party ... and if you do that, game recognizes your crafted followers as another PCs ... effectively overwriting many (in my experience practicaly all) conversations with your other followers, making it almost impossible to effectively raise reputation with them.

I believe that Larian should either figure some way to let follower conversations wait, until we finish first one ...
Or even better tie them together ... like: Astarion have ! over his head > we talk ... talk is finished, Gale who also had ! over his head says "I would also like a word, if i may" or something simmilar ... > talk with Gale starts ...
Or at the very least, give us option to somehow avoid this unnecesary talking between 2, 3 or 4 PCs, that leads nowhere, and effectively makes it impossible for us to raise reputation where we want to. :-/

//Edit:
Also i dare to say that by my most honest opinion, custom party and rolled stats should be implemented as soon as possible, since as it seems by using multiplayer ... dunno, it isnt exactly bug, lets call it "way" ... to create such party, it would use some SERIOUS testing. :-/

@GM4Him : are you looking for cosmetic or mechanical customization in your mercenaries? Or are the fixed starting abilities what bug you (ie: I’m a fighter mercenary so, while you can teach me any skill, I always start with Stone Skin and Chicken Claw or whatever)?

Like Pathfinder Mercenaries. That's what I'm looking for. Full character creation

Yes I agree, you should have full control. It really is not that hard to do. In this regard I think pathfinder wotr did it much better. Albeit there the problem, they are to expensive. I think a healthy Middle ground would be ideal for BG3.

Yes. You have a grove full of refugees. Finding adventurers who might be willing to join for a small fee shouldn't be too hard.

I actually think mercenaries should only cost money if you dismiss them. While being a part of your party, they gain room and board with you, AND they share equipment and loot as long as they are members of your party. As soon as you dismiss, though, they should want a "share of the loot" especially if you take all their gear before dismissing them. I mean, isn't that usually how adventurers work? They'll join a party for a cut of the loot as opposed to some up front fee?

I also like the idea of starting with a party of 4 custom characters but having the ability to dismiss some later once you pick up some origin characters or the ability to hire more mercs. I think that would be fun.

Possibly but I can foresee significant issues with implementing this.

When you dismiss them, can you just say "no" to paying the merc? Or does the mercenary just automatically steal X gold from the party stash upon dismissal? If so, the party could try to spend it all buying magic items before dismissing the merc, and thus having no money to actually pay the merc with.
Would the merc then steal a certain amount of loot from the party, gp + equipment + consumables? How would this be implemented: randomly? That could be incredibly aggravating.

And in both of the above situations, it becomes the optimal solution to just kill the merc instead of dismissing them, so you can reclaim your lost equipment and not have to pay their fee. It's all around just easier to have a gp cost upfront, that theoretically is essentially un-reclaimable from the recruiter - either by being a too-high DC to steal back, or (my recommendation) just disappearing entirely from the game.

For whatever reason I find that when it's possible to recruit fully custom Mercs at a midpoint, if I end up creating a second custom character, I almost always lose interest in them or the entire playthrough shortly afterwards. At least in both Pathfinder games I found that to be the case for me. Same deal in BG2, whenever I tried it with more than one custom character at a go. I could do the full custom party and get into it, but splitting the difference never seemed to hold my attention. Still, I think it's good to have fully custom Mercenaries available, for other people who do like those kind of Mercs, and to capture the fully custom party vibe of older games.

For my part, I'd prefer a basic scheme where many NPCs (or even most of the NPCs we meet in the first act) would be willing to sign on with the party for the right price. Perhaps a lot cheaper than the fully customizable merc, but with more quest flare. So instead of a flat cost in gold, it could be something else more specific to that particular NPC, to persuade the rando to tag along. BG1 would be my ideal model, where just about every area had a possible recruit. While recruitment quests in BG1 were usually fairly simple (visit a specific area, kill/save somebody etc.) they nevertheless added a bit of charm and a jumping off point, even if they weren't much beyond a couple voice barks. Just about every NPC we encounter in BG3 already has way more characterization and voice content in-place, from their limited cutscenes, than just about any of the BG1 NPCs had, so I think it could work in a very similar way. Having some more limited respec on those types characters would be fun, because then you get an added challenge of how to best kit them out starting from whatever you're given as a base/initial vibe they give off. In BG1 some companions were just better than others, but even for the companions who had a weak stat block or whatever, it was still fun to find ways to make them 'the best they could possibly be' with certain equipment combos or dual classing (if human) and other stuff like that to make it a bit more engaging.

Yeah. Could be a bit of a challenge to implement, and if so, I'd rather just have the standard Pathfinder pay up front merc. The main thing I want is fully customizable and dismissable. Frankly, in Pathfinder, I found that I didn't care for most of the companions they offered, and making my own custom characters was much more fun. I suddenly got into the game a whole lot more when I could create my own. However, a party of 6 allowed me to create 4-5 custom characters and still have room for at least 1 or 2 of the comanion characters the devs created so that I could do companion quests if I wanted. Also, the ability to dismiss a companion is awesome if that companion is really not working out well. Then I'm not stuck with some shmuck custom companion that I really don't want anymore in my party - having to reload to some way back point before I hired them just to get rid of them.

But as far as the idea of paying for them after you dismiss them, yes. Paying the merc could be in monetary value either by letting them keep equipment you'd already equipped them with or by paying an outright gold fee. In other words, if their fee was 1,000 gold, and you already have them equipped with 500 gp worth of equipment, the final cost would be 500 to let them go. OR, if you are a shady, evil type, you could kill them and take all their stuff. That's entirely up to you, the player. My evil drow charlatan sorcerer would absolutely order Lae'zel to kill some merc who signed on thinking he was going to get a fair share only to discover he was in a party full of evil people who would use him and murder him when they were done with him. Shoot. Whether you pay up front or if you want to dismiss them, I think that option would TOTALLY make sense.

And I would 100% love to have the ability to hire them and not have them in the immediate party sometimes but to remain at camp until you need them again. That way you could make a bunch of mercenaries and have them at camp, mixing and matching your party however you like and whenever you like. Maybe there'd be a maximum companion count at camp, or a camping supply cost for each companion you have at camp, so that you don't have like a million companions all sitting at camp, but I would absolutely love to have the ability to hire and fire endless numbers of mercenaries.

+1

If you could just kill them to avoid the cost of hiring them, I'd want there to be some consequence. Maybe some sort of reputation system for hiring mercs. E.g., the next merc you attempt to hire *does* require (some or all) pay up front, possibly at a higher rate, because the previous merc hired by your party mysteriously disappeared. And if you kill this one too, then you're blacklisted and can no longer hire mercenaries.

Instead of some random generated one, I would like to be able to “hire” some of the named NPCs in the game. They obviously will not have the depth of design as the origin charecters. I am fine with their stats not being perfect as long as they are applicable to their class.

For example, I would love to be able to hire the Helm Paladin oath breaker or that Tiefling you give combat pointers to in the grove (name?). Theses guys have somewhat of a background/story that adds to immersion. Use Detect Thoughts on the Tiefling and you will see why he is trying to get better at combat.

Yes! That would be awesome. I love it. That'd teach players who like to abuse the merc hiring system.

"Random generated" mercs is EXACTLY what I DON'T want. Absolutely not. That's what DOS 2 has. You basically tell the recruiter, "I want a fighter," and they give you some random fighter merc to join your party. Why? You must REALLY hate the origin characters to hire some randomly generated merc to be in your party, or you have no Resurrection scrolls or whatever to bring the origins back to life, so you're stuck hiring a merc.

No. If they're going to do mercs, PLEASE make it so I can create them just like I created the MC in the game. I want to be able to make Kaedyn the Cleric of Tyr as my MC and then also Vexir the drow Battlemaster and then also Ryth-Shan the githyanki ranger beastmaster all with stats and choices and appearances that I choose. I absolutely think it'll be a HUGE waste of time to have "random generated" mercs.

That said, I do like the idea of being able to hire on other NPCs that are in the game that you have a good relationship score with. Maybe it's the pink haired tiefling, Nadira, up on the hill with her telescope, or Rath, the druid who argues with Kagha. Or maybe it's one of the three adventurer tieflings; Rolan the wizard apprentice and company. Or maybe you could hire Sazza after letting her out. Or there's the tiefling you can make a bet with that they'll never make it to Baldur's Gate. That would be kinda fun; to be able to hire just about anyone you encounter.

But ultimately, I'm really more interested in being able to have a party of custom characters. Character creation is one of my favorite things to do, and I LOVE having parties of my own design. Again, I'd like enough room in the party to have at least 1 or 2 origin characters, or characters already created by Larian, and for that we'd need a party of 5 or 6 as opposed to party of 4 max.

So this thread is about both because it's really difficult to have a party of 4 custom characters knowing you can't ever do origin character side quests or anything. You really feel like you're missing out on a part of the game just because you like to have a few characters YOU created. That's a real bummer to me. I can't tell you enough how much fun it is in Pathfinder to have 4 or 5 custom characters and then 1 or 2 dev created characters for side quests and such.

They should just do it like in the old BG games. A custom party of 6 from the very beginning with the possibilty to "park" them and rejoin the party at another time. This way you have your own favorite party and can exchange them for premade party members at will in order to complete their side quests. All are happy...